


Fic:  11th Doctor

by amproof



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Doctor/Rose if you squint, Gen, it's called 11th doctor but this was before Matt Smith came along, wrote this in 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amproof/pseuds/amproof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrote this in mid-2008, before Matt Smith's casting was announced.  So... this is about Ten <i>not</i> regenerating into Matt Smith. But Eleven does turn out to be a familiar face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fic:  11th Doctor

The 11th Doctor  
by [](http://amproof.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://amproof.livejournal.com/)**amproof**  
Spoilers: "The Stolen Earth" (4.12) and the last 3 episodes of series 3.  
Warnings: None  
Age: All  
Pairing: Rose/Doctor, depending on how you look at it

Regeneration was a white pain. It started from the inside, at the 'chakra', the Buddhists called it, and emanated outwards. It did not just swallow him, it obliterated him, spanning out from his essence, melting the rest of him away, the part that was not really him. He had no sense of that part disappearing, or a new part closing around the part that was him, the forever part. It was all glossed over, really, by the flames shooting from his mouth, nose, ears, fingertips...

It was embarrassing, changing in front of people. Like dreams about being naked in public, only true. Unfair, too, someone else getting the first look. Might be nice to be able to assess himself first, for once. Decide for himself if his hair was too spiky or his ears too sticky-outy.

The pain dwindled. Stopped. He had turned around from the force of it. He sat up, facing away from Donna, Captain Jack, and Rose.

"What just happened? Will someone tell me what's happened??"

Oh, Donna. All the aliens they'd seen, and this would probably be the roughest thing to explain to her.

"He doesn't die. He regenerates," Jack was saying, his tone patient but barely so, as if he was running out of the means of explanation. Probably had been repeating it since the glowing started. The Doctor looked at his hands. Four fingers, one thumb on each hand. Two hands. So far, so good.

"What's happened???"

"He changed bodies," Rose snapped.

"Whatcha mean he changed bodies?" Donna's pitch was about to topple past the human ability to hear.

Oh, Donna... The Doctor started to touch the parts of himself that he could not see. Two ears. Two eyes. Good. Not bald. Brilliant. Ears...decent. Lips, a little thin. Nose felt...like a nose.

"Doctor?" Rose said. "You alright?"

His hearts soared. Oh, he had missed her! He was going to turn around and give her such a hug. The kiss the hologram wouldn't allow... Just as soon as his legs got their cells in working order so he could stand... He hoped he wasn't ugly. Not that he thought she was fickle. Certainly not.

"Doctor? You going to let us see you?" Captain Jack said.

"Be nice," he said, testing his voice. Hmm. Gravelly. He could do with it. "Always sensitive the first time out." What? He was? No he wasn't. Why did he say that?

He stood up. The pants were a little long now, the waist a little tight. He turned around. "Ta-da!"

Rose flew into his arms. Their tears melded. Just as quickly, she was snatched away. He looked up at Jack, who was now between them, one arm holding Rose behind his back. With the other, he was pointing a very large gun. The Doctor looked behind himself for a Dalek. Nothing there. Which meant Jack was either seeing things, or...

He was pointing his very large gun at the Doctor.

"Captain?"

"Stay where you are."

"What is it?" The Doctor looked at Donna. She had stopped speaking and was staring at him. "Donna?"

"Wha...you?" she said.

"Yes, me!" The Doctor said. It's me, you idiots! No. Where did that thought come from? He would never call a human an idiot, certainly not lovely Donna. Brilliant beings, most of them. Invented forks.

Donna didn't seem happy. The Doctor had learned, these past few years of getting smacked by mums, to identify when a woman was not happy. Such as now.

She made to run towards him, fists out. The Doctor cringed for the blows, but Jack edged himself between her and the Doctor, too. It was Jack between the Doctor and two women. In another situation, the Captain would enjoy it. Hello, irony.

"That is not you!" Donna said, her head bouncing just behind Jack's shoulder.

"What are you talking about? It's me," the Doctor said.

"Actually, I'd like to know that, too," Jack said.

"Why are you guys acting like this?" Rose struggled, but Jack held her tight.

"He's not safe," Jack said. "Don't go near him."

"It takes a few days for my cells to settle, but then I'll be fine. It's no harm to you." The Doctor started to edge around the Tardis. Jack moved the arc of the gun along with him. The Doctor stopped in front of the mirror. He picked it up. Looked at his beautiful new...no. no. no. no.

It fell from his hands and shattered. "It's coincidence," he said. He looked down. The new face glittered up at him in 10 pieces. He kicked the pieces away. "He died in my arms. Maybe I absorbed part of him? Internalized his face?" He turned back to Captain Jack. "Don't you think that's possible?" He felt a desperation rising within him. "Right?"

Jack lowered the gun. "The second you mention *anything* that reminds me of him, I will kill you, do you understand?"

The Doctor nodded. "Sounds fair." The way Jack was looking at him, the way the gun was still at the ready, the Doctor wondered what had been done to him during his year in captivity, when he was kept chained, alone. He rubbed his hands together, pushed the thought out. "Now, let's save the world, shall we?" See, *he'd* never say that; I'm not him! He wanted to gloat, but didn't. That was something he would do.

"Anyone want to tell me what's going on?" Rose said. She emerged from behind Jack, rubbing her wrist.

"Well, he," Donna pointed at the Doctor, "was Prime Minister last year, but he got assassinated."

"Actually," Jack said, "he was a rogue Time Lord who destroyed almost all of the human race and held the Doctor and myself prisoner for a year."

"It wasn't that bad," the Doctor said feebly.

"*You* weren't tied up in a dungeon!"

"No, but one does get sick of Kibble."

"And this man, this 'rogue Time Lord', he died in your arms?" Rose said. The Doctor heard a smidgen of jealousy there. Well, it wasn't as if they were lovers. Just...the only person in the galaxies who he could relate to.

"Yes."

"The second to last of your kind."

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

He nodded, not willing to risk words in case they revealed the loneliness sweeping over him. Alone in a crowd, the title of his autobiography, if he ever did one.

"We had a state funeral for you," Donna said. "They cancelled work and everything!" She still seemed angry.

"Not for me, Donna. For him."

"Well, *heeeee* promised us increased wages, and we never saw them, so you'll excuse me if I'm not happy to see you, even if what Captain Cutebottom is claiming actually happened, which, I'm sorry, but I don't remember any of that, being obliterated and all, and I think I'd..."

"Maybe you were in Spain. Scubadiving," the Doctor said. Donna glared.

Rose went over to him. This time, no one stopped her from touching him. She rested her chin on his chest and looked into his eyes. "Two years I'm trying to get back to you, and once I reach you, you decide to regenerate with the body of someone who wiped out the human race?"

"I..I didn't decide... and he tried; he didn't succeed."

She said something else to him. He watched her lips move and knew she was speaking. He couldn't hear her, though, over the sound of the drums.

The End


End file.
